Timeline Visualization in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 ships with a fully integrated Timeline Visualization tool. It provides the user with a visual projection of future supply and enables the user to make modifications on the fly.

The Timeline helps you understand and optimize your inventory profile with its visual projection of future supply, demand, and planning data.

Who Will Benefit from the Timeline?

Well, the initial idea with the Timeline was to create a tool that would bring clarity to specific supply and demand situations. It was intended to help the planner analyze the planning output and quickly make adjustments. However, we quickly realized that this was a great tool for other types of users, including sales people, purchasers, and so forth.

Okay, So What Does It Do?

Basically, the Timeline Visualization displays a visual projection of the future inventory level for a specific item or SKU, based on supply from Purchase, Prod. Output, and other areas, and demand from Sale, Prod. Components, Forecast, and so forth. On top of this, you can choose to include planning suggestions – giving you a chance to see and modify the plan prior to executing on it. All of this takes place outside the Requisition Worksheet, so you can play with the quantities and dates until you are satisfied and then save the changes to the worksheet.

The Timeline feature has been designed using data from inventory (Item availability by event). A similar design could be conceived and designed for resource availability, but we didn't include such a feature with Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013. You might be able to design a customization for this yourself, or you can find existing Gantt chart solutions available that several NAV reselling partners have created.